As Winter Broke
by Enshes
Summary: A simple shopping trip between friends. Oneshot, Kyo and Tohru


**Disclaimer:** Fruits Basket and its characters were created by Natsuki Takaya, and I make no claims of ownership. This story was written for fun and boredom. :o  
**Chronology:** Animeverse, beyond the conclusion of the 26th episode without reference to manga events.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
As Winter Broke  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The afternoon was awash in beautiful streaks of amber, gold, and muted white that spread across the landscape like strokes of a paintbrush, coloring the plentiful trees that had already been consistently shedding their leaves in anticipation of winter. Tohru hummed to herself a nameless melody as she stared out the window, her small hands working swiftly over a sopping wet dish held beneath the tap. She lost herself in the breathtaking scenery for a few moments before realizing that the dish was washed squeaky-clean, and she placed it on a rack to dry, cramming it in the last space between all of the other dishes that had been used for lunch.

She was falling a little behind. Lunch had been served at least three hours ago, and she had struggled to get the laundry done before even tackling the clean-up from the meal. Yuki was finishing up a paper that she hadn't even begun to research, so he had been unable to come to her aide with the housework, Shigure was trying to beat another deadline under the hawk-like eyes of his editor, and she didn't even know where Kyo was. He hadn't been around for the midday meal.

Now with Shigure's request to go into town and pick up a pack of drawing pencils for him from the local art store and the practically empty cupboards and refrigerator, Tohru doubted she would get any school work done that day. Truthfully, she was beginning to feel worn out. She was trying her best to hide the fact from everyone, but she wasn't sure they were completely buying into her reassuring smiles. It's not like they were oblivious.

_But this isn't anymore than I can handle. It will definitely get better soon._

A couple of loud bangs sounded as the door in the next room slid open violently and was slammed shut just as forcefully. Tohru could hear Kyo's voice muttering softly to himself a string of unintelligible words, and she smiled. She turned her head and called out clearly towards the doorway separating the two rooms, "Are you hungry, Kyo? There's leftovers in the fridge."

"I'm not hungry!" Kyo shouted, sounding unnaturally angry in response to her innocent question. A couple of pounding footsteps came closer until Kyo's lean body fit into the frame of the doorway, falling heavily against the side as reddish eyes landed on her face. "What are you doing?"

"Cleaning up," Tohru replied in a chipper voice, smiling at Kyo as she reached for the tie of her apron, tugging it apart with her fingers until the knot was loose. She ducked as she brought the upper loop over her head, flipping her hair over her shoulder in the process. She carefully folded the wet apron and stared down at the work of her hands as she asked her next question, hoping for a less violent response. "Do you want to go to the store with me?"

"Huh? Man, why do I have to go?" Kyo demanded, narrowing his eyes at her.

Tohru laughed at his answer, thinking that he was always quick to assume the worst about things. "You don't, that's why I asked. I just thought you might want to spend some time with me and go into town for awhile." She placed the apron on the little space near the sink that was reserved for the dish towels and other such items and clasped her hands in front of her as she watched the taller boy slump forward.

"What do you have to go into town for?" he asked, locks of orange falling forward into his eyes that were impatiently swiped away with long fingers. His mouth set into a pursed line that matched his generally bristly tone of voice, eyes still guarded.

"Oh. Shigure needs some artist supplies. Drawing pencils. He asked me to go to the art shop and pick some up for him," Tohru answered, bright blue eyes locked on Kyo's face.

"Son of a bitch!" Kyo's voice returned to its previous anger, though much more vitriolic in its current state. Red ran into his face like spilled blood, pooling in his cheeks as his fangs showed with his next exclamation. "I'm going to tell that stupid bastard to quit bossing you around like you're his damn slave. What's stopping him from getting his own damn pencils, huh? He ain't some invalid!"

"It's okay, I'm going into town anyway to get groceries," Tohru interjected with a wide smile, bringing herself closer to Kyo with a couple of swift steps. She didn't want Kyo to bolt for Shigure's room and instigate a needless argument. "He simply wanted to know if I would make another stop for him. It's fine. Really."

Kyo was silent, but to Tohru it seemed his rage was receding. She took a deep breath and softened her smile, somehow realizing that it was actually completely genuine. Just seeing and talking with Kyo had melted most of her stress and weariness away. She paused, but Kyo remained unspeaking, so she tried for a final time. "Do you want to go?"

"OKAY!" Kyo yelled, turning on his heel and stomping into the room he had entered from, jamming his sock-covered feet into the sneakers he had just removed. He had kept his light blue hooded sweatshirt on, apparently not having the time to take it off after coming in from the chilly weather. "Get ready, and I'll meet you outside."

"Sure. Thanks, Kyo."

_For everything._

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Aren't you freezing your ass off?"

The two were walking down a small dirt path on the outskirts of town, their shoes making shallow impressions in the soft earth as they pressed forward. The ground's supple properties held a direct correlation to the amount of travelers that tread over it, namely, the Soumas who lived in Shigure's household and its visitors were the only ones to ever take it as a road into town. To the average pedestrian looking out from the village's vantage point, the grove of trees from which Kyo and Tohru emerged would have appeared as ordinary as any other. Despite the expansive reach of the Souma property, it was invisible to the many people who lived within miles of its borders.

_"That feeling of seclusion. . . doesn't it bother you sometimes?"_

_"Not after you get used to it. The quiet becomes normal, and it gets startling to be back where everything is so busy and loud. You miss the solitude then."_

Kyo had snarled the earlier question from between clenched teeth that clacked together from the invasive chills running through his body. The action of walking had begun pumping his blood and bringing more warmth to his cold interior, but he was still uncomfortable being outside and couldn't wait to enter the town and get into a shop. The sweatshirt and thick cargo pants weren't doing much of anything to quell the icy shivers, and he lamented his oversight in not wearing a thicker coat.

Tohru laughed at Kyo's inquiry, shaking her head and glancing sideways at him with a slight curiosity dancing inside her cerulean depths. She was dressed simply in a pair of thick brown pants and a loose shirt covered with a light parka. "Not at all. It's not winter yet, Kyo. You're--" She noticed his unsuccessfully hidden tremors and frowned. "You're freezing."

"No, its--" Kyo steeled himself, clenching his stomach in order to regain some control of his randomly firing nerves. He sighed with frustration, realizing that it was going to be impossible to keep the truth from her with any lie. He didn't like doing that, anyway, not to her. "Yeah. I hate this damn weather. Next thing you know, it's going to start snowing and crap like that. Makes me want to find a hole somewhere and die."

"Well, don't do that," Tohru said with slight reproach, reaching out and taking Kyo's hand within her own, slender fingers closing around his. Her grip was warm and firm but gentle, fragile. A paradox that Kyo couldn't even begin to comprehend as a flood of emotions began within him, come coming so fast that they rose along with some kind of acidic fluid from his stomach. He recognized the butterflies, but still, a more overt sensation of comfort kept his body's 'fight-or-flight' responses in check. He returned the hold.

The rest of the walk to a small local grocery store was mostly in silence, though it was the comfortable and familiar kind and not a reflection of a relationship fractured by insurmountable differences. Kyo glared at a group of young, prepubescent boys who pointed at the locked hands and began laughing amongst themselves. He was so used to being singled out and mocked that their petty immaturity did nothing to stop him from holding the hand of his closest friend. Returning her affection was worth immeasurably more than the approval of strangers.

"Do you have a list?" Kyo asked as Tohru extracted her hand from his after they had entered the store, digging around in the deep pockets of her loose pants. She nodded as she brought out a thin sheet of paper, gazing intently at the neatly printed items she had listed on its surface. After a few seconds of standing next to her awkwardly, Kyo grabbed a cart from nearby and snatched the list from her, causing the paper to crease in his clenched fist. "Come on, let's just do down the aisles and pick stuff out."

Tohru followed Kyo as he began to push the cart, leaning his arms heavily upon it as they made their way down the first aisle. He kept his face stony and glared at a few vendors who tried to offer them discounted goods and place unwanted things in their basket. Tohru was quick to brush them off politely after Kyo had barreled past them. She stopped in front of the bakery counter and called for Kyo to slow down. "I need to pick up some bread. Why don't you pick out something for yourself?"

"I guess," Kyo grumbled, allowing his eyes to rove over the various baked confections and finding that they lingered on some delicious-looking anpan. He looked at other breads and desserts but found nothing that made his stomach grumble quite like the anpan. There was a tray of the sweet buns individually wrapped in plastic that were selling for about 100 yen. He grabbed three of the buns and tossed them in the cart, watching as Tohru set a load of wrapped bread carefully next to his carelessly thrown buns.

"Anpan?" she smiled. She had picked up her list from where Kyo had put it inside the cart and was smoothing it out. "Don't you want to get some different kinds?"

"Nah," Kyo replied, taking the cart and turning it slowly, keeping his pace sluggish enough to accommodate Tohru as she pored over her list. He steered it down the next aisle, thoughts going nowhere as he looked at the products lining the shelves. He hadn't eaten a thing since breakfast, but he couldn't force himself to think that he was actually hungry. He was worried about the paper due in school that he hadn't even started thinking about beyond 'oh crap, what the hell am I going to do about this?' That rat bastard Yuki had been extremely pleased to throw the fact that he was almost finished on the same paper in Kyo's face that morning, and he had left the house to thrash about in the woods to avoid punching the smug rat's face in.

Tohru went down her list, folding the paper down with each item that they put into the cart. She continued to urge him to pick out things for himself, pointing at the candy and suggesting they each get something. He simply declined each time she asked, being careful to keep his voice and face neutral to avoid having her think that he was mad at her. Of course he wasn't, but he was plenty angry with himself for being such a procrastinator. How sweet would it have been to shove his own completed paper in Yuki's face and wipe that damn smile away?

His mind just wasn't there with Tohru, not until they were checking their items and Tohru began to make worried noises under her breath. Kyo picked up on her anxiety and quickly asked, "What's wrong? What is it?"

"I forgot the money Shigure gave me. Oh no, how on Earth am I going to pay for all of this?" Tohru's eyes wavered with unshed moisture, lower lip trembling as the weight of her mistake loomed over her head. "I can't believe it."

Kyo glanced at Tohru, then at the confused shopkeeper, and stopped back on Tohru. "Put this stuff back in the cart, okay? I'll go run to the house and get the money. Just stay right here."

"Kyo, you can't. It's twenty minutes one way, and you already said that it's too chilly--" Tohru protested, trying to take hold of his arm.

He brushed her off swiftly, zipping up his sweatshirt and placing the hood over his head. "Whatever. These groceries aren't going to pay for themselves. It won't take me that long, so _don't move_, okay?" He waited for her tentative nod and took off, running like his life depended on the speed of his stride. The surroundings became a blur, the cold became a memory, and the only thought that burned ferociously inside his cerebral centers was to make it back to Tohru as quickly as he was able.

_And while I'm back home, I might stop for a bit to tell Shigure where he can stick his damn pencils._

The thought made him smile.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kyo could have been a mummy if the grocery bags dangling from his arms were in fact cloth bandages. He was practically drowned in the bags while all Tohru carried in her grip was a small sack containing Shigure's pencils. She had already apologized about not getting the pencils first so that Kyo wouldn't have had to stand outside with the groceries while she ran into the art store, but he had waved her apologies away as unnecessary.

She couldn't forget the way the orange-haired boy had looked as he burst into the grocery store, a wad of bills clenched in his hand as his lopsided grin shot through the thickening crowd to shine on Tohru alone. His hair had been a wind-blown mess, his eyes wild, his skin flushed from the cold and exercise, but his smile had been the focus of Tohru's attentions. She had worried all the time he was gone that he was cursing her for being such a forgetful burden, but all she had needed was his grin to know that everything was still okay.

"I can carry something else," Tohru offered, turning to the boy and holding out her hand so that he could pass one of the bags to her and lessen his load. He rigidly refused, lifting one of his encumbered arms to push hers away.

"I got it," he said. "I got it, okay?"

She didn't fully believe him, but she knew when to quit. Kyo was a lot of things, but his stubborn streak was pretty spectacular sometimes. She took a few moments to study the boy, sunlight filtering in from behind his head forming an ethereal halo around his profile and giving him an illusion of transparency. He could have been a ghost, or a guardian angel that had come to the Earth plane for a couple of stolen moments in order to help her. He certainly fit the bill of such an angel, even though he tried to hide his generous tendencies with a cloak of general disdain and prickly hostility. Though his rougher emotions were probably true when directed at Yuki, she knew that he didn't exactly feel that way towards her anymore.

"Kyo," she said softly, turning her eyes away from him and staring again at nature's glory spread before them.

"Huh? What?"

"I hope it stays like this," Tohru said quietly, her voice nearly breaking as she kept it thin and delicate. She poured her emotions into her words and tried to hold back some errant tears that had worked their way into her eyes as her feelings swelled within her and tried to burst free. "After we finish high school and continue on with our lives. I hope we can all remain close like this, stay together, just like we promised."

Kyo didn't respond right away. The fallen leaves crunching beneath their feet filled the space, filled her ears with a reassuring sound of existence. Their steps were almost melodic in that sense, weaving a fragile song that stayed with her even as Kyo began to speak, loudly clearing his throat before the words came. "Yeah. Maybe."

Tohru chuckled. "You didn't have to say it like it's _that_ impossible, Kyo."

"Yeah, sorry. I just..." Kyo's brow was furrowed as he stared ahead, eyes drowning in unreadable feelings that caused his sepia depths to darken. "I meant to say... we will. Okay? I'm sure we will."

Tohru knew that Kyo wasn't one to be optimistic. He was forcing the words from his lips just to sate her selfish expectations. She appreciated his efforts, but her desire to prove him wrong deepened as well. He didn't believe that they would make it through life with their friendship bond intact. He thought that they would eventually drift apart and lose touch as they grew older and gained more life experience. To him, hers was a childish, impossible dream.

_Dreams come true, Kyo, if we make them come true_.

She would show him that much.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_I guess she was pretty happy that day. Looking back, God knows why. The weather was complete shit, and there was that whole fiasco with forgetting the grocery money._

_I think I injured myself carrying all those damn bags. My back hurts like a bitch today, and it took me like ten damn minutes to drag myself up to the roof, wearing an extra heavy coat of course._

_The morning sky is really-- really nice today, though._

_I didn't want to lie to her like that. . . but I think it made her happy. Happier._

_If it was up to me, we _would _stay together. That's just not the way the world operates. School's not forever. Friendships stray and end._

_I can hear her-- she's doing the dishes again. Wearing that apron and probably humming one of those songs._

_This can't last, either._

_It's starting to snow now. Damn._

_Better get inside, where it's warm._

End


End file.
